The Portent Blog: Internet Marketing with a Twist of Lemonhttps://www.portent.com
Helping you see the forest for the trees in internet marketing: Pulling together search, design, content, social, and more with a cogent strategy.Mon, 19 Nov 2018 17:17:56 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/http://www.portent.com/bloghttps://www.portent.com/images/portent-logo_mark_and_text-dark_blue-safe_area.pngPortent, Inc Logoconversationmarketing/MRJIhttps://feedburner.google.comWhen to Stop Blindly Following Your Platform Data: From Search Console to Facebookhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/9XDhbmyZWKM/stop-blindly-following-platform-data.htm
https://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/stop-blindly-following-platform-data.htm#respondFri, 16 Nov 2018 18:53:50 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=44326As client partners at Portent, we are constantly looking at the results we drive for our clients. We also talk a lot about fearless accountability for remarkable results. But what happens when the KPIs you’re getting from advertising or analytics platforms don’t tell the full story? Whether it’s attribution bias from on-platform data, or a… Read More

]]>As client partners at Portent, we are constantly looking at the results we drive for our clients. We also talk a lot about fearless accountability for remarkable results. But what happens when the KPIs you’re getting from advertising or analytics platforms don’t tell the full story? Whether it’s attribution bias from on-platform data, or a shortcoming in modeling the fully loaded cost of a sale, it’s a roadblock to measuring what’s actually working for our clients, and it’s a problem that requires critical thinking and constant vigilance.

Similarly, as analytics and ad platforms struggle with how much data they can and should share, we’ll see places where they come up short in explaining acquisition paths, user behavior, etc.

Here are a few recent examples I hope you can apply in your own work, and use to think about where else to bring a critical eye to your raw conversion and cost data.

I recently asked some other smart folks at Portent about cases where data or reporting was leading our clients astray. Zac Heinrichs, our SEO Team Lead, shared a situation he encounters quite often in Google Search Console’s data being unreliable.

While Google Search Console (GSC) provides insight into what Google has crawled and seen on your site, their crawl is often not as up to date as the live version of the site. For example, GSC may insist that 500 URLs are broken on your site when you know for a fact that they’ve been fixed.

Also misleading is GSC’s inclusion of any external link to the site, whether it is an actual page or not. For instance, if someone types the wrong spelling of their blog’s URL, Search Console will include that in their output of links to your site. Zac laments that Search Console provides “all the things they found wrong with your site across all of space and time.” This creates a problem, especially for larger sites, in filtering the erroneous, non-broken pages.

However, Zac explains that “the onus isn’t on Google Search Console” to update their data and make our lives easier. Instead, he insists on balancing this free service with insights from other tools that have fresher data. Using a combination of SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Moz will give you more accurate data, as well as different angles from which you can assess and cross-check your site.

Google Analytics Lead You Astray? Try Log Files

Often, our clients come to us unable to understand why their website isn’t being indexed. While search engine spiders eventually reach their crawl budget and move on, it will happen even quicker if your site structure looks like this:

Your first inclination may be to open Google Analytics to diagnose the issue. But remember it’s Google’s crawler that has figuratively thrown its hands in the air and accepted defeat. In this scenario, Google Analytics isn’t going to provide a lot of useful information, since you’re working with partial data by virtue of the original crawlability problem.

Log Files To The Rescue

Instead consider accessing your website’s log files. Thorough, if not obsessive, log files record everything that happens on your site. When Google has long given up on your website, log files are there. First time reading log files? Read Ian Lurie’s guide to decoding log files.

During my first log file analysis with our SEO team I wondered: why don’t we use these more often? Why are they so underutilized? I realized that in an industry that values speed of execution, accuracy sometimes comes in a not so close second. I like to think of log files as the tortoise in The Tortoise and The Hare, where slow and steady wins the race.

Facebook Lead Costs and Quality – Consider a Manual or Offline Cost Reconciliation

Enough harping on Google, let’s pick on Facebook.

A caveat: this is really a parable about taking stock of lead quality. And a caution that as marketers we need to consider how much time and money it takes to convert leads into customers, rather than simply following the scoreboard of converted leads on any platform.

Alex DeLeon, Director of Search & Social at Portent shared a recent example where our team was initially misled by eCPA data on a Facebook lead gen campaign, in a way that could’ve led to a lot of waste if left unchecked.

The Scenario: Alex and his team built a lead-generation funnel for a client, advertising primarily through social media. The team identified three basic levels of lead readiness or quality, that mapped roughly to where they were in the customer journey and how much information the lead provided during an initial conversion:

Lead (a user who simply clicked on the ad through to our client’s website)

Qualified Lead (a user who provided their name and e-mail address)

Phone-Qualified Lead (a user who overtly requested to be contacted by a representative)

Using Facebook data to assess the costs for leads at each level allowed the team to play with optimizing their spend to drive the highest number of leads and converted customers at the lowest cost.

Intuitively this seems sound and should look familiar to any marketer that’s evaluated the trade-off of adding more or less required fields to a form for conversion rate optimization, for instance.

What the team and the client nearly failed to build into the model in this case was that while Facebook was providing the true cost per acquisition of each type of lead, the landed lead cost was inflated by inside sales team fees and the cost to actually speak with a representative. It wasn’t simply that a smaller percentage of lower-intent users were going on to purchase. It actually cost the company significantly more to convert each one.

The solution was to work more closely with the client to manually pull and report the landed lead cost, rather than relying on technically accurate but misleading platform data. Ultimately this story did have a happy ending and the client’s running lead generation on social to this day. However, Alex admits they were so confident in Facebook’s abilities that they didn’t question the data at first glance.

The Lesson

Looking back personally, I realize that beyond building my digital marketing foundation, the training I went through for platforms like Google and Facebook built a strong sense of loyalty to these companies. (Turns out content marketing might really work!) When I needed guidance on industry changes, I looked to Google’s most recent update. When I needed performance insights, I went to Google Analytics without hesitation. While these and other platforms provide valuable training and line of sight, they aren’t the infallible source of truth that they’re often taken for.

To be clear, I’m not telling you to stop using these platforms or their analytics altogether. I’m simply recommending you put down the Kool-Aid, explore some other options, and sanity-check your lead gen cost models to make sure they tell the whole story of customer acquisition cost.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/stop-blindly-following-platform-data.htm/feed0https://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/stop-blindly-following-platform-data.htmAmazon Advertising Features You Already Know and Lovehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/R3IVzptd7gg/amazon-advertising-features-similar-google-ads.htm
https://www.portent.com/blog/amazon/amazon-advertising-features-similar-google-ads.htm#commentsThu, 08 Nov 2018 20:57:55 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43543As Amazon continues its steady ascent towards world domination, Amazon Advertising (the newly unified name of Amazon’s ad offerings) is playing an increasingly significant role in that growth. Recently, Amazon overtook Bing to become the 3rd largest digital ads platform by market share. So, if you’re a digital marketer anywhere near ecommerce, Amazon Advertising is… Read More

As Amazon continues its steady ascent towards world domination, Amazon Advertising (the newly unified name of Amazon’s ad offerings) is playing an increasingly significant role in that growth. Recently, Amazon overtook Bing to become the 3rd largest digital ads platform by market share. So, if you’re a digital marketer anywhere near ecommerce, Amazon Advertising is a critical part of your mix. And if it’s not, you’d better have a really good reason for abstaining from their marketplace that starts and ends with “we’re better off sacrificing huge volume in exchange for the direct-to-customer relationship.”

But the front-line reality is that we see most businesses sell themselves short on Amazon not for some noble protest, but because they think they don’t know how to use Amazon’s advertising products well (yet).

Spoiler – If you know PPC you know Amazon Advertising so dive in

Look, I get it: you’re probably already spreading your digital efforts and money across a bunch of platforms, and focusing on the winners. How are you supposed to learn an entirely new platform, using advertiser tools that are far less sophisticated than Google Ads (for now), AND build a presence on Amazon Advertising that’s profitable, without taking your eye off of the incumbent channels?

Shameless: The cheat-code answer, of course, is that you can hire someone like Portent to do it for you!

That said, if you’ve got the bandwidth and drive to make Amazon Advertising a core competency for your marketing team, there’s increasingly good news for seasoned search marketers.

Amazon Advertising shares some of the most useful, common features with platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads. If you have knowledge and experience on either the Google or Bing ad platforms, you already know how to leverage a few of the most useful features on Amazon.

Here are a few of the biggest and most important similarities to get you started.

Account Structure on Amazon Advertising

In Google and Bing (read, traditional PPC platforms), search campaign and ad group structure provide the basis for account organization and performance monitoring.

Campaigns that are built and organized well encompass the main theme (for example, “Seattle souvenirs”) with subordinate ad groups providing a break-out of sub-topics (think “Seattle souvenir mug” and “Seattle souvenir pencil” as separate ad groups).

The structure in Amazon is very similar. To get started with a new campaign, decide between highlighting individual products or focusing on promotion of your brand as a whole.

It’s imperative to understand the difference between the two options. Are you trying to focus on sales for single products? If so, the individual products option (Sponsored Products) should be selected. This ad type is the typical ad medium most advertisers envision when they think of placement on Amazon.

If you want to focus on promoting your WHOLE brand on Amazon, the “Sponsored Brands” option would be a better choice. This is a newer ad offering that’s more in-line with Amazon’s goal of letting businesses spend to drive greater brand awareness and brand presence on their platform. Both options are visible in the image below:

You’ll then fill out the campaign settings and create your first ad group(s), similar to what you’d do in Bing Ads or Google Ads with a new campaign. However, on Amazon you have far fewer options to choose from for targeting purposes. Options like location and language targeting simply don’t exist in the Amazon user interface (yet).

One additional nuance that’s unique to Amazon is the Manual vs. Automatic targeting feature although Google’s Smart Shopping campaigns overlap a bit. Automatic targeting campaigns are designed to have Amazon do all ad targeting via algorithm, sacrificing some control but offering better efficiency in time and potentially results. Amazon pulls primarily from your product pages and the behavioral data it keeps on shoppers, meaning you don’t select keywords or need to hassle with pesky things like your experience, intuition, or knowledge of your customer (not that we’re biased). With manual campaigns the keyword selection, including match types, is in your hands. More time required, but with the trade-off of tighter control.

Keyword Research on Amazon Advertising

The Google Ads and Bing Ads keyword planning features have become familiar and useful tools for many marketers. Simply add a few potential keywords or URLs and magical results filled with terms, competitive landscape, and even suggested bids on the keywords listed appear!

Well, guess what? Amazon has its own keyword tool. The catch, though, is that it’s not quite as front-and-center as the tools provided by Bing and Google.

To access the keyword-planning feature in Amazon you’ll need to navigate to the ad group level of a manual campaign. Automatic campaigns however don’t use keywords so it’s not even offered from those campaign screens.

In manual campaign planning and research, you’ll have the option to view and add suggested keywords based on your product details, manually enter your own keywords, or upload a file (XLSX, TSV, or CSV formats) to add new keywords to a specific ad group.

Like the Google and Bing platforms, Amazon also provides keyword bid suggestions for you to use as a basis for projecting cost. Unlike Google and Bing, Amazon doesn’t provide search volume estimates. For that, you will have to look to third-party ecommerce keyword research tools like Merchant Words.

Keyword Match Types on Amazon Advertising

Selecting the granularity of your keyword targeting is functionality that goes back ages (by digital standards…) on the Bing Ads and Google Ads platform. Match type usage provides specific instructions to the platform on how precisely or loosely to match an advertiser’s ads with keywords for relevant search queries.

And in what’s probably the most important parallel between Amazon Advertising and the entrenched PPC platforms:

You can absolutely use match types for targeting Amazon Sponsored Product ads, which is a huge step forward. The wonderfully familiar options of Exact, Phrase, and Broad match types are all ready and waiting for you.

Here’s a quick primer on each option for those who are new to PPC or a little rusty:

Exact: Triggered when someone types in the exact same search term or phrase you’ve targeted, or small variations thereof (think “Seattle souvenir(s)” if the term searched is “Seattle souvenir”).

Phrase: Phrase match requires the terms or phrase you select to be included within a search query for ads to appear. However, any other combination of keywords or phrases can be included in a given query. Also, the order of your keyword must be identical to the search query (“finding Seattle souvenirs” will trigger for Phrase match if your phrase is “Seattle souvenirs” while “souvenir locations Seattle” will not).

Broad: Assume everything even semi-related to your keyword will be eligible to display. That means the term you select, and even similar search terms may trigger your ad (“souvenir in Seattle” and “Seattle-related gifts” could both trigger a result for a broad-match “Seattle souvenirs”)

As with Google and Bing, there’s no right answer when choosing which match types to associate with your keywords. If you’re looking for tight targeting for which only identical or close queries match your keywords, Exact and Phrase match are the way to go. If casting a wider net via looser targeting parameters is your goal, Broad match is the ticket.

So, what are the big differences on Amazon Advertising vs. Google and Bing?

There are obviously major differences in both audience mindset and overall platform, but the most obvious one is in the quality of the features for advertisers. Although Amazon is making constant improvements, both Google and Bing Ads have been around and competing for direct-response ad dollars for an eternity by digital standards. Amazon’s meteoric rise on the direct-response and programmatic advertising side are still relatively new, so it’s not surprising that the tools are still a little less sophisticated.

Pro-Tip and some very important examples: If you’re familiar with device targeting, ad scheduling, automated bidding, and location targeting, those features are NOT available via Amazon’s platform.

These features are known and loved by marketers and operating without them can leave you at a significant disadvantage as far as managing ROI or return on ad-spend (RoAS).

However, there are a number of 3rd party options such as Seller Labs or SellerApp that provide extensive research and performance toolsets that can be used in conjunction with Amazon’s built-in features. For our Amazon clients, Portent uses SellerLabs tools to manage a lot of the current shortcomings of Amazon’s on-platform controls, and to efficiently manage huge numbers of products and ads simultaneously.*

Another crucial difference with Amazon Advertising and overall presence is more subtle – Amazon Sales Rank can be improved via paid advertising efforts. The Amazon’s Sales Rank figure is a metric covering the number of sales for a product relative to the number of sales for competing products.

For Google Ads and Bing Ads, there is a clear separation between paid and organic listings. With Amazon, however, everything counts together.

This literally means that running paid advertising on Amazon will help increase your visibility for your organic listings as well because Sales Rank factors both listing types into the Amazon algorithm.

In Amazon’s case, you’re effectively double-dipping in that organic rank can be improved via paid campaigns. If you needed any more motivation to get started with Amazon Ads as a complement to your organic product listing optimization work, that should hopefully do it.

Recap

If you’re thinking about diving into Amazon Advertising you can absolutely leverage your existing experience in Google Ads and Bing Ads to get you started.

Specifically, there are similarities in account structure, keyword discovery, and keyword match types that can give you a running start. But again, we strongly recommend using 3rd party tools supplement your optimization efforts, and shy away from consultants or agencies who don’t do likewise.

Finally, if you’re looking for an added incentive to invest in Sponsored Product ads on Amazon, don’t forget that any sales increase will bolster your organic listings, as Amazon Sale Rank factors in sales across both channels.

Amazon is iterating like crazy to drive parity, so there are guaranteed to be more similarities that we’ve not touched on. What other pertinent advice or similarities between the 3 platforms would you highlight? Please chime in with your comments!

*Disclaimer – I have not been asked to write about either tool option here.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/amazon/amazon-advertising-features-similar-google-ads.htm/feed2https://www.portent.com/blog/amazon/amazon-advertising-features-similar-google-ads.htmChrome 70 Update: HTTPS Site Security and the Full Symantec Distrusthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/F9vwv4FEBZc/chrome-70-update-https-site-security.htm
https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/chrome-70-update-https-site-security.htm#respondTue, 06 Nov 2018 18:45:30 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43832As of October 17, 2018, Google has released Chrome 70, and with it, they have once again increased their security warnings for sites that are not fully HTTPS secure. The language used by the browser has also become increasingly severe over the last couple of years: One of the most specific targets of these new… Read More

]]>As of October 17, 2018, Google has released Chrome 70, and with it, they have once again increased their security warnings for sites that are not fully HTTPS secure. The language used by the browser has also become increasingly severe over the last couple of years:

“[U]sers will start to see full screen interstitials on sites which still use certificates issues by the Legacy Symantec PKI. Initially this change will reach a small percentage of users, and then slowly scale up to 100% over the next several weeks.”

Chrome has been planning this depreciation of trust in Symantec security certificates for more than a year now thanks to some shady practices that compromised users’ security when they visit apparently secure, trusted sites. From Google Online Security blog’s ominously titled Chrome’s Plan to Distrust Symantec Certificates:

“On January 19, 2017, a public posting to the mozilla.dev.security.policy newsgroup drew attention to a series of questionable website authentication certificates issued by Symantec Corporation’s PKI. Symantec’s PKI business, which operates a series of Certificate Authorities under various brand names, including Thawte, VeriSign, Equifax, GeoTrust, and RapidSSL, had issued numerous certificates that did not comply with the industry-developed CA/Browser Forum Baseline Requirements.

During the subsequent investigation, it was revealed that Symantec had entrusted several organizations with the ability to issue certificates without the appropriate or necessary oversight, and had been aware of security deficiencies at these organizations for some time.”

Apparently, Symantec certificates were being handed out by Symantec’s authorized partners like they were Halloween candy…

What do we do about Chrome 70’s Symantec Distrust?

The chances are slim that we have any clients that are using the affected Symantec HTTPS certificates. After all, this has been a known, impending change for some time and competent site operators have already updated their SSL certificates well in advance. But, there is no reason to leave it to chance and just assume that everything is OK on the sites we care about.
Checking for the depreciated Certificate Authorities (CA) is a pretty simple task that only requires a few clicks per website. Here at Portent, we put together a small team to run through our entire book of clients and took the following steps:

Check your SSL Certificate Authority

Launch Chrome

Go to the website you want to check

Click on the lock next to the URL in the browser bar

Check to see if the certificate is valid and click on ‘Certificate’

See who shows up in the ‘Issued by’

If you are already running Chrome 70, and you find an offending site, there’s a chance you’ll get to see the full-screen interstitial mentioned earlier. That’ll make the check process a lot faster.

Alas, and huzzah, none of our clients are using a legacy Symantec SSL certificate!

There are, however, a handful of sites that are on HTTP or are unsecured on HTTPS for varying reasons. For anyone who has yet to migrate to HTTPS or have had trouble doing so, our Development Architect Andy Schaff put together a comprehensive guide to make the switch to HTTPS.

Security is a Ranking Factor

Well, first off, HTTPS is a ranking factor! Going all the way back to 2014, HTTPS has been a ranking factor. It started as a tie-breaker between otherwise equally ranking sites, now, it’s even part of the Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (my emphasis added):

Low quality pages often lack an appropriate level of (Expertise, Authoritativeness, or Trustworthiness) E-A-T for the purpose of the page. [For example the] MC [Main Content] is not trustworthy, e.g. a shopping checkout page that has an insecure connection.

Secondly, if not us, then who? We can’t afford to leave anything to assumption and chance. By checking in on the little things that matter we can prove that we care about the well-being of each of our clients, it’s one less thing that they have to worry about. After all, that’s why we we’re here.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/chrome-70-update-https-site-security.htm/feed0https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/chrome-70-update-https-site-security.htmPick Another Playground: Link Schemes & Lessons From The Skinny Kidhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/YVgbA1uSjrk/pick-another-playground-links-schemes-lessons-from-the-skinny-kid.htm
https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/pick-another-playground-links-schemes-lessons-from-the-skinny-kid.htm#commentsTue, 30 Oct 2018 17:02:35 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43919Note: Zillow hired me to review the proposed bylaw change that led to this post. Redfin wrote that proposal. Redfin and Zillow aren’t buddies. I hope that didn’t affect my analysis. But keep in mind that someone who opposes this proposal paid me to write. I wrote a recent post on Inman.com about a proposed… Read More

]]>Note: Zillow hired me to review the proposed bylaw change that led to this post. Redfin wrote that proposal. Redfin and Zillow aren’t buddies. I hope that didn’t affect my analysis. But keep in mind that someone who opposes this proposal paid me to write.

I wrote a recent post on Inman.com about a proposed change to the National Association of Realtor’s bylaws. The purpose of that post was to discuss the proposal, weigh the risks and rewards, and give my opinion.

But there’s a general discussion to be had about SEO, links and link schemes. This post is my own take on all that, as an old-fart SEO. It’s also my take as someone who never kept his mouth shut on the playground and learned some things the NAR needs to know:

Don’t punch the big kid in the face. Punch them somewhere else

Don’t pretend it’s an accident. It just makes them madder

Don’t drag other people into it. It’s not fair

Don’t expect them to negotiate. It’s too late

The proposal, and the problem

Remember: Don’t punch the big kid in the face.

We all know that Google despises manipulative linking:

Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.

Google’s notoriously vague about their terms of service. But they’re clear about arm-twisting link schemes. Here’s one of their examples of a link scheme:

Requiring a link as part of a Terms of Service, contract, or similar arrangement without allowing a third-party content owner the choice of using nofollow or other method of blocking PageRank, should they wish.

The proposal I reviewed reads:

Participants shall include…a prominent, followable, search engine indexable, plain HTML hyperlink…Participants shall not alter or manipulate any Link such that the Link is not readily recognized by search engines.

Translation: “To be part of our organization, you must provide followed links to certain content providers.”

Or: “We will require a link from you as a member, and you will not block this link from passing PageRank.”

I nearly coughed up my gallbladder. This is a hey-look-at-me punch aimed squarely at Google’s schnoz. You couldn’t have created a better example of a TOS violation.

Remember widgetbait? This makes widgetbait look like a love tap. Google is not going to let it go.

Yeah, NAR. This policy will punch Google in the face.

This is about attribution. Or is it?

Remember: Don’t pretend it’s an accident. It just makes the big kid madder.

I understand the non-SEO intent of this proposal. Redfin wants to provide attribution for people who create content. That’s a good thing. If you read my stuff, you know I feel pretty strongly about that.

If this weren’t an SEO thing, I’d be all for it.

Except this is an SEO thing. The proposal is crystal clear: It requires SEO-friendly links. Don’t pretend. Pretending otherwise insults everyone’s intelligence. It just makes them madder.

Google’s bad, and it doesn’t matter

Also important: Don’t drag other people into it.

Google sets my teeth on edge. Don’t manipulate links, they say. The next day I look around and find sites with laughable link profiles. They say provide a good UX and… well, you know how that ends.

They make white-hat SEOs look stupid on a daily basis. Their TOS enforcement is wildly inconsistent. Someone needs to call bullshit.

Right now, though, we’re talking about lots of people who have jobs and businesses that, for better or worse, depend on Google rankings. Unwittingly flinging them into a lopsided fight isn’t OK. There are other, more-impactful ways to do battle and keep everyone off Rocinante.*

Don’t drag the entire industry into a fight you pick by violating Google’s terms of service. They didn’t volunteer, and it’s not fair.

Google won’t discuss this

One last thing: Don’t expect them to negotiate. It’s too late.

It’s tempting to think you can negotiate with Google.

Maybe you can, but not when you’re discussing a proposal that’s a perfectly-executed violation of their terms of service. You’re going to Google and saying “Hey, we’re going to stick a fork in your left nostril, is that OK? Can we talk now?”

The resulting “discussion” will be Google saying “let your realtors use nofollow, or we will bathe in the blood of your rankings.”

That’s a discussion you can avoid, by the way, with a simple fix.

Fixing this proposal

If your goal is attribution, there’s a simple fix for this proposal. Google’s going to object that this proposal requires followed links. So don’t. Permit nofollow, instead of forbidding it. Let folks decide for themselves.

It moves away from Google’s definition of a link scheme. It ends the fight before it begins and lets you pick a better one. So why not do it?

Pick another playground

For me, the last lesson was the most important.

I’m not suggesting you lie down and forget about attribution. I’m suggesting you pick a different playground.

Pick a situation where you’ve got a better argument, where you’re not directly violating Google’s terms of service, and where you can fight on behalf of your industry. That’s how you can win. Because like it or not, you’re the skinny kid on this playground.

* Don Quixote’s horse. Also a spaceship in a cool TV show. If you’re heading for the latter, go for it. If the former, well, you know what happened in that story.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/pick-another-playground-links-schemes-lessons-from-the-skinny-kid.htm/feed1https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/pick-another-playground-links-schemes-lessons-from-the-skinny-kid.htmPPC For Beginners: Learn From My Mistakeshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/UmtGH1uU8dk/ppc-beginners-learn-mistakes.htm
Fri, 26 Oct 2018 05:17:48 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43802Slides from my ACP-LS talk, “Fast Times, Easy Wins And Burned Money: A Beginner’s Guide to PPC” It’s my beginner’s perspective on PPC and what not to do. (It’s a lot of slides. Don’t worry, every slide has a single idea. No bullets. Because bullets kill.) A Very Brief Sales Pitch I don’t do this… Read More

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/ppc/ppc-beginners-learn-mistakes.htmSpeak your Customers’ Language – The Importance of Localizing International Contenthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/ZuhvnVLPPic/speak-customers-language-importance-localizing-international-content.htm
Wed, 17 Oct 2018 16:30:06 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43575Expanding into a new international market is an incredibly exciting moment for a business, and can open up fantastic opportunities for new growth. If you’ve done the research and are confident that this is the best next step for your business, let me start by congratulating you. And when it comes to international SEO as… Read More

Expanding into a new international market is an incredibly exciting moment for a business, and can open up fantastic opportunities for new growth. If you’ve done the research and are confident that this is the best next step for your business, let me start by congratulating you.

And when it comes to international SEO as a necessary part of global expansion, it’s important to keep in mind that what you’ve learned in your home country won’t necessarily translate to every new market. (See what we did there?) While the use case for your product or service remains the same, simply translating your existing marketing copy may throw a wrench into the way that information is perceived by your future customers and search engines.

Lost in translation – A lesson about localization

I came to the U.S. in fifth grade. To this day, I have a very vivid memory of a “self-esteem building” exercise we did as a class. For the exercise, all students taped a blank sheet of notebook paper to the top of their desks. Then, everyone had to go around the room and leave positive comments about each one of their classmates.

At the time, I barely spoke any English. Aside from knowing how to say “hello” and “how are you?”, I relied on my pocket translator to help make sense of the world around me.

After everyone completed the task, we went back to our seats to review. The comments were anonymous. To me, so were the words.

I reached for my pocket translator and began translating every word, from English to Russian.

One of my classmates wrote, “you rock!” — A common phrase, usually interpreted in a positive regard. But think about the direct translation… “you stone!”

Here’s where my foreign brain immediately took me:

“Am I dull and boring?”

Since then, I learned that telling someone they rocked was a compliment. I also learned not be so trusting of my pocket translator. There’s a great and not-so-subtle lesson here for businesses looking to expand to new markets and new languages. Your good intentions won’t translate without a little extra effort.

Why Google Translate or translation chop-shops won’t cut it

Though technological advances in natural language processing have come a long way, when it comes to marketing your business in a foreign language, it’s best to avoid using direct computer translation without a heavy dose of human help from someone living in the market who knows your industry.

While programs like Google Translate may be sufficient to help you get directions or to order a meal in 100 different languages, pure translation services should not be trusted with the core messaging of your business. At least not yet.

The example from my childhood is harmless. However, consider how a direct translation of the word “rock” could impact your customer’s understanding of your product.

Say, for instance, you run a business that sells top of the line toothbrushes and you want to expand your market to Russia. Why toothbrushes? Because I’m a strong believer in dental hygiene (just ask my dentist).

So what can you do instead? Hire a professional translator to both translate and localize your content. If you find a good one, they’ll be able to provide a far more accurate and engaging translation of your copy—which plays a major role in the way your customers will find you.

Going further with localization

Now that your content doesn’t read like a direct output from Google Translate, your next job is to make it feel as though it belongs in the targeted region. This means finding a way to fully localize it.

I think of localization as travel research. Before traveling abroad, I research cultural customs, learn a few basic communication phrases, and of course, get a good understanding of the local currency. Why? Because I don’t want to look like a complete idiot, especially not while wearing my obnoxiously bright, 60-liter travel backpack. #tourist

Beyond not wanting to look like a total goon, I also do that research because I want to avoid being immediately judged as the outsider. For a business, avoiding this moment of mistrust is key to growth and development in new markets.

Localizing your business means taking the extra step in getting to know the foreign market and the individuals who live there. It’s also a critical step in establishing your business as authentic to the new country and communicating your message without friction.

Beyond things like changing dollar symbols into rubles, you’ll want to ensure that other parts of your content are customized for things such as regional variations and cultural norms.

Regional variations

Even if you’re expanding from an English-speaking home base to another English market, you need to be mindful of regional differences. For example, if you’re marketing a U.S. based product to Brits, at the very least, you’ll want to have a good understanding of the most common regional variations that exist between the two.

Keep in mind, regional differences aren’t only international. If you take a look at the U.S. market, you’ll find search differences for “soda” vs. “pop”. While search engines are generally smart enough to understand the user’s search intent, the user is still likely to choose the option that is more familiar to them—this is based on the mere exposure effect.

Having a solid understanding of regional variations will improve your search results. After all, if you don’t know how your prospective customers are referencing your product or service, they’ll never find you.

Cultural norms

Cultural norms can mean a lot of different things. A useful guide to the dimensions of cultural difference as you’re looking at international expansion is Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions framework. Cultural norms vary region by region, city by city, and even home by home, but this model looks primarily at differences between countries. One of the best examples and most important as you’re planning your marketing strategy and brand positioning is in the difference between individualistic and collectivistic cultures.

If you’re marketing to an individualistic culture, you’ll want your message to focus more on the “I”. It is common for people of such a culture to have goals and desires that help them be independent. Countries like the United States, Canada, United Kindom, and Australia are well known for their individualistic views and practices.

Alternatively, if you’re marketing to a collectivistic culture, you’ll want to focus more on the “we”, highlighting groupthink mentality and focusing on solving goals that will benefit the well-being of a community, not just a single individual. Countries like China, Russia, and the Philipines are great examples of markets that fit into the collectivistic culture norms.

To state the obvious, this is the kind of foundational positioning and marketing work that would never, ever come back from a translation engine or an inexpensive translation service.

Tying it back to SEO

If you read our post on Content-First SEO, you already have a clear understanding of the content/SEO relationship. When it comes to the international expansion and SEO, the core lesson from that post still applies: SEO is about content.

Once your content is properly translated and you have a solid understanding of your localized target keywords, then (and only then) will you be able to make technical SEO changes that will help you show up in search for the exact phrases that your customers use to find a business like yours.

Whether you found a new way of referencing your product or service, or you identified new keyword opportunities, you’ll need to optimize your website with all of those new or refined targets in mind.

Where to next?

Expanding to a foreign market is incredibly complicated. We’re only scratching the surface of the cross-cultural marketing considerations here, and there are a huge number of fundamental marketing challenges from core positioning to brand or line extensions that you’ll need to work through before you ever get to international SEO and localization. But, beyond ensuring that your content is simply coherent and optimized for search, I hope you take this charge to create content that connects with the people in every market you serve.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/5-lessons-entrepreneurs-2018-edition.htmNew Instagram Features are Making it Easier to Shop In-apphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/eVUaOEvTgfY/instagram-making-app-based-shopping-easier.htm
Tue, 09 Oct 2018 19:07:34 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43383If you’re already running social advertising, you know that Facebook Ads Manager makes it easy to repurpose creative intended for Facebook directly to Instagram by simply selecting a story or feed placement. But as Instagram becomes more of a discovery tool for shoppers, there is a massive opportunity for eCommerce brands to drive sales beyond… Read More

]]>If you’re already running social advertising, you know that Facebook Ads Manager makes it easy to repurpose creative intended for Facebook directly to Instagram by simply selecting a story or feed placement. But as Instagram becomes more of a discovery tool for shoppers, there is a massive opportunity for eCommerce brands to drive sales beyond promoted posts or stories.

Features like adding links to an Instagram story which allows a user to swipe up and head directly to a landing page of your choice have been around for the last year or so, but availability is limited to business accounts with 10,000 followers or more. To further establish itself as a destination for inspiration-based purchases, Instagram has not only made available paid ad placements more engaging, but they’ve found more ways let brands of all size showcase their products organically with conversions in mind.

In September, Instagram formally rolled out Shopping in Stories, which started as a limited beta in June. Brands can tag products available in their Facebook Catalog in organic stories in-app using shopping stickers. In turn, users can tap the sticker during the story experience and see the price and item description, or head directly to the product page.

Courtesy of Instagram

Shopping in Explore, another new commerce-driven feature, utilizes “topic channels” launched earlier this summer and personalizes categories of interest unique to each user on their explore page. Shopping in Explore leverages the Instagram algorithm to show users shoppable posts by brands they follow, alongside non-shopping content served based on your other browsing habits.

Courtesy of Instagram

With a steady stream of product updates under their belt, it’s clear eCommerce will remain a top focus for Instagram. In fact, the rollout of these most recent features comes on the heels of news that Instagram may be launching a standalone shopping app. This seems like a natural transition considering that the very nature of the Instagram app makes product discovery a breeze.

We’ll likely continue to see Instagram pushing to drive ad spend with special emphasis on Stories. With a low barrier to entry, organic-like shoppable posts and the newly launched shoppable stickers will continue to lure businesses of all sizes to the platform as Instagram continues to solidify itself as an online shopping destination.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/social-media/instagram-making-app-based-shopping-easier.htmPart Two: How to Build a Google Ads Account – Campaign & Ad Group Structurehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/3nTXv7ZF-AU/build-google-ads-campaign-ad-group-structure.htm
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:46:46 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=43003This article on PPC campaign structure is part 2 of a multi-part series which will cover just about every facet of a successful Google Ads account top to bottom. Whether you’re building a new account from scratch or auditing an existing account to find improvements, we hope you’ll use these posts as a guide to… Read More

]]>This article on PPC campaign structure is part 2 of a multi-part series which will cover just about every facet of a successful Google Ads account top to bottom. Whether you’re building a new account from scratch or auditing an existing account to find improvements, we hope you’ll use these posts as a guide to help make sure your Google Ads account is in pristine condition and driving your best possible ROI.

What’s in this post: Campaign & Ad Group Structure

This installment covers the importance of structure in PPC. The success of your entire account often relies on a healthy, scalable structure to ensure you have the right level of insight, optimization, and budget control. Inconsistent or poorly-designed campaign structure will turn into wasted money. Use this article to make sure your structure is solid, and stick with that proactive organization as you grow.

Pay-Per-Click Campaign Structure

When you build a new PPC account, your goal should be to create a logical structure that reflects the categories and sub-categories of product or service that you offer. Start with the end-goal in mind that you want to be able to easily evaluate broad yet distinct categories as a whole, but also to understand or optimize that performance at the sub-category level without having to skip all over the place to find things.

To complicate things, you’ll also need to consider the user’s journey and mindset, so that if visitors who search for your site a certain way convert better with a different message you can identify and cater to that. As an example, think about what you’d show to someone who searched for your brand and a specific product, versus a visitor who originally searched for a non-branded term like “jacket” or “winter coats”.

To get your bearings and avoid getting overwhelmed, it’s often useful to start by considering the navigation of the website you’re advertising, whether it’s your site or a client’s.

Often times, especially with e-commerce sites, the primary categories and sub-categories featured in the main navigation can serve as an adequate starting point to break out your paid search campaigns. There may be layers of sub-categories, or sub-sub-categories that aren’t reflected in navigation, but in a well-designed site the high-level options are typically both accurate and exhaustive for the broad product groups.

Once you break out the categories, here are a few additional best practices to follow:

PPC Campaign Structure Best Practices

Branded keywords are typically housed in their own campaign(s)

If a visitor includes your brand name in a search, or the brand name of one of your products, that’s a powerful indicator that they’re in a different relationship with your company than others.

Because branded search queries typically indicate a current customer, or a well-researched prospect who’s already close to purchasing from you, that’s exactly the kind of user behavior you want and need to track separately to get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not.

Keyword match types can also factor into campaign structure

While it’s certainly not required, similar to breaking out branded search into its own campaign, it’s common practice to break out campaigns by category, and then again by match type. If you can identify meaningful differences in what a user wanted by virtue of how they searched it, this may be a valuable addition.

Bid modifiers can help you handle device-type without extra campaigns

While a lot of PPC practitioners used to advocate splitting your account and campaigns out for visitors coming in via desktop vs mobile search, you don’t actually need to do this at the campaign level.

You absolutely do need to look at how visitors from different device types perform for ROI and optimization purposes. But with bid modifiers that allow you to adjust precisely how much you’re willing to pay for certain types of click within any campaign (e.g.: mobile vs desktop), duplicating every campaign by device type is a waste of time and over-complicated tactic for most accounts.

Identify high-volume keywords for stand-alone campaigns

Over time, you may find a particular keyword attracts a significant amount of impressions and clicks which warrant putting into a stand-alone campaign with its own budget.

While the traffic is often welcome, a high-volume term in a given campaign may prevent your budget from being used on lower-frequency but high-ROI keywords. You might be setting yourself up to sabotage your results by ignoring these instances and not adapting your campaign structure.

Example of PPC Campaign Structure

Example: You’re building a pay per click advertising account for a website that covers 3 primary categories. Your campaign structure could look something like this:

Brand Only (Exact Match)

Brand Other (Exact Match)

Brand Other (Modified Broad Match)

Category A (Exact Match)

Category A (Modified Broad Match)

Category B (Exact Match)

Category B (Modified Broad Match)

Category C (Exact Match)

Category C (Modified Broad Match)

When it comes to display campaigns, including remarketing, you’ll want to break your campaigns out by targeting criteria. For example:

Remarketing Audience A

Remarketing Audience B

In-Market Segment

Interest/Topic Category A

Interest/Topic Category B

Managed Placements

Ad Group Structure

Moving one level down from campaigns, Ad Groups should be tightly themed and (ideally) contain no more than a dozen keywords each. That’s not a rule, but it’s usually a good idea to keep ad group keyword lists small. This will allow you to easily tailor ad copy, even if you just tweak a headline, to better match specific keywords. Ad groups should also contain keywords with only one match type.

To maximize granularity and increase your chances of improving quality scores, you could give each keyword its own ad group. However, this is often times unnecessarily granular.

Here are some examples of useful ad group structures within a PPC campaign:

Campaign: Category A (Exact Match)

Sub-category A – Exact Match

Sub-category B – Exact Match

Sub-category C – Exact Match

Sub-category D – Exact Match

Or, if your campaigns are not broken out by keyword match type:

Campaign: Category A

Sub-category A – Modified Broad Match

Sub-category A – Exact Match

Sub-category B – Modified Broad Match

Sub-category B – Exact Match

Sub-category C – Modified Broad Match

Sub-category C – Exact Match

Sub-category D – Modified Broad Match

Sub-category D – Exact Match

Pro-Tip: In cases where you have ad groups with keywords in phrase or broad match, and these keywords also exist elsewhere in your account in exact match, you’ll want to use negative keyword lists which contain your account’s exact match keywords in these ad groups to ensure search queries get funneled to the most relevant keywords.

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads

Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) are remarketing audiences applied to search campaigns or ad groups, and they can be incredibly powerful if used thoughtfully. Creating these targeted groups of past visitors allows you to bid up or down in your campaigns or ad groups for users that have seen very specific content, or have simply interacted with your brand.

For example, if you have a particular search campaign with a lot of competition and high click costs, you could apply an RLSA of users who’ve visited your site previously and apply a bid modifier of +50%. That way, in this campaign, you’d only increase your bids by 50% for users who have already visited your site at least once. Similarly, if prospects have visited a specific vendor comparison page on your site, you might consider bidding even higher for this precise group using RLSA.

Laying the groundwork for future RLSA targeting

Pro-Tip: it’s important to ensure your campaign or ad group’s targeting flexibility is set to “observations” when using RLSA’s. This ensures your ad impressions are not limited only to users in these audiences. If your targeting flexibility is set to “targeting,” ad impressions will be limited to users in your RLSA’s only; all other users will be excluded.

Recap of Paid Search Campaign and Ad Group Structure

Take a look through your account. Do you have a coherent and consistent structure throughout each of your campaigns? How about your ad groups? Are you utilizing RLSA appropriately? Any room to expand? Are there any high-volume keywords or categories that dominate a budget shared with low-volume high-performers?

Closely evaluate your keyword categories (including sub-categories) and match types as part of your overall structure. So long as you organize your campaigns and ad groups effectively on these two dimensions from the start, optimization and analysis will be much easier going forward. It will also be simple to expand and add more campaigns as needed.

For those of you who have more experience in Google Ads, do you have a preferred structure for your paid search accounts? What have you seen work well in the past? Let us know in the comments below.

]]>https://www.portent.com/blog/ppc/build-google-ads-campaign-ad-group-structure.htmThe 13 Best Tools for Outreachhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/conversationmarketing/MRJI/~3/1C8Dcxsw_5E/13-best-tools-outreach.htm
Thu, 20 Sep 2018 21:08:59 +0000https://www.portent.com/?p=42927I’m going to be brazen and say something extreme: you can’t do outreach without tools. At least, you can’t do good outreach. And you can’t do great outreach without great tools. You get it. A great digital marketing strategy is like a huge rock band—each player has a part to play, but they wouldn’t be… Read More

]]>I’m going to be brazen and say something extreme: you can’t do outreach without tools. At least, you can’t do good outreach. And you can’t do great outreach without great tools. You get it. A great digital marketing strategy is like a huge rock band—each player has a part to play, but they wouldn’t be anywhere without their instruments (picture a group of grown men and women making silly gestures in the air—no result, and I’d probably be a little embarrassed for them).

I’m sure tools vary from company to company, but after years at this, and going rounds with the good ol’ school of hard knocks and trial and error, these are my lucky 13. To give more tangible examples, I’m going to be pitching my fake travel site EuropeforaDollar.com (hey—a girl can dream).

Streak Chrome Gmail Extension

Streak is one of those tools that I don’t know how I ever lived without. There are lots of ways you can use Streak but for what it’s worth I only use the email tracking.

I can see if an editor has opened my email and how many times. Then, when they don’t reply, I can send them an innocent email asking if they had received my email when I know that they opened it TWELVE times. By the way, this tool can also drive you to the brink of insanity.

Twitter

Twitter is a great tool for outreach, because, according to some, journalists, editors, and PR people make up a huge percentage of its users. Many editors openly call for pitches and quite a few of them make their email addresses public.

Just using a simple search for “pitch me” yields a lot of great results. The caveat here is that these editors get a LOT of email, so make that subject line pop and be sure to follow up. Twitter is also great for maintaining and building relationships with your contacts. Some editors spend way more time on Twitter than they do answering emails but I will not name names. You know who you are.

Google Advanced Search Queries

You just can’t beat a good, well-executed advanced Google search when you’re looking for guest post opportunities, but Google search does have a language all its own. If you’re less familiar, aHrefs has a pretty good list of queries you can use in Google along with explanations and a few examples. If you’re a search nerd and an outreach specialist, using combinations of these queries virtually guarantees you’ll never find the end of the internet when you’re looking for guest post opportunities.

For example, sometimes I’ll cast my net wide with something like “inurl:travel “write for us”” or just “inurl:blog travel.” As another example, if I were looking for niche Canadian travel sites that talk about European cruises I can search for “intitle:European Cruises inurl:.ca inurl:travel.” But really, you shouldn’t get THIS specific. In this example, I only got one really targeted result which isn’t super helpful, but you get the point: you can get really granular.

Moz Chrome Extension

No one wants to spend a ton of time writing a guest post for a site that has a domain authority (DA) of 10 unless it’s super niche, super relevant, or it’s a new site that looks like it’s going to gain authority fast. For my fictional travel site, a publication called European Cruise Savings would be a jackpot, even if it only had a DA of 18.

Granted, anyone who has tried using the Moz Chrome extension for long periods of time knows it can be a little buggy. Take this for the wonderful free tool that it is, and press on. The Moz Bar is indispensable and I highly recommend it. You can see where it tells you the domain authority of a site as you search.

Buzzstream

Buzzstream is the single best tool for promoting content. It makes prospecting for journalists and media outlets a breeze, not to mention sending emails with handcrafted and personalized templates. It’s even more valuable if you have a team doing the outreach, as you can see who has had the most success with different contacts and who has had none.

For the promotion of my content piece, an evergreen calculator called “European Cruise Calculator Tool” I’d create a project for each country and subprojects for each vertical, like “News,” “Lifestyle,” “Travel,” etc. and begin searching for great outlets to cover my free tool.

Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a powerful content analysis tool. It allows you to easily research who is writing about a particular topic (and you can then add those journalists to a project in Buzzstream). You can set up alerts to track your client’s brand mentions and links, and you can get a ton of helpful ideas when brainstorming for new content promotion campaigns.

For example, I used Buzzsumo to come up with my calculator tool idea above, and will use it to get alerts every time a media outlet covers it.. When I search for “Take a European Cruise” I can see that the writer, Annette White, is someone I might want to reach out to because she has an interest in cruise travel.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is such deep tool that it will take years to figure out all that it can do. It has its own ranking system similar to Moz’s, called domain rank (DR). You can see a complete history of referring domains, track new links coming in, and do a competitive analysis on your client’s competitors. The Link Intersect tool in particular will help you find links that all your competitors are getting and you aren’t, which is a goldmine. Ahrefs does have a Chrome extension but it’s not the most reliable, so I wouldn’t suggest it.

Moz

How can anyone do outreach without Moz? Not only do they provide a ton of content for learning about link building, but their tools are amazing. Moz’s tools are widely used by SEO specialists, but it is quite useful to the Outreach Specialist. The “Link Explorer” tool will give you an overview of a site’s backlink profile, who’s linking the most, the DA of those sites, and much, much more. It’s great for competitive analysis, or to track your own client’s inbound links.

SEMRush

Similar to Ahrefs, SEMRush is a very agile tool. I like the user interface a little bit better than Ahrefs, so I use them interchangeably. Occasionally SEMRush doesn’t have information that Ahrefs does, so I toggle between them.

I especially love the geo information that SEMRush has, which is especially helpful when targeting certain countries in your outreach campaign. For instance, if I was just targeting Canadians for my cruise calculator tool, I could find publications with the most Canadian traffic.

Cision

Like many of these tools, you’ll need a subscription to use it, but boy what a tool Cision is for outreach. Thousands and thousands of media outlets and contacts are listed in this search tool, and most of them are gold: email addresses, interests, role, and actual beat that they cover.

For instance, I could find the travel editor on most major publications and pitch them specifically for my calculator tool. I could also export a .csv of media outlets and contacts and import it into a project in Buzzstream. Get this tool.

RocketReach

RocketReach is my backup email finder. If I can’t find an editor or journalist’s email address in Cision, I use RocketReach. It’s pretty straightforward.

MailTester

MailTester is a free tool where you can guess and test an email to see if it works. If I know that Bob Smith who is a film editor at Travel & Leisure and his email is bsmith@t&l.com, but I want to contact Joe Johnson, I could try jjohnson@t&l.com. MailTester will tell you if it’s a valid email address. Make sense? Simple tool, but helpful.

Similar Web Chrome Extension

SimilarWeb is a great extension in my nav bar. I can see geo traffic for every site I’m on, as well as monthly site visits for most sites. I then report to my client how much visibility a particular placement earned them. For instance, if I were to get coverage for my calculator tool on Travel & Leisure, I could report a whopping 9.1 million monthly site visits. Mic drop.

Where to from here?

The success of your outreach efforts is in your hands. Use some of these tools and your outreach rock band will be able to successfully play “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Use them all and you’re looking at mastering “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Your choice—but I say, go big or go home.